Ambassador Tigran Mkrtchyan's comments to the Latvian tvnet.lv news agency

27 October, 2020

The interview was originally planned to be conducted in the form of a televised debate between the Ambassadors, but the Embassy of Azerbaijan declined participation in such a format. At the initiative of the media outlet, questions with the same content were addressed to the Ambassadors of Armenia and Azerbaijan and the interview was conducted in text format.

1) Who is responsible for the ongoing clashes in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict?

Azerbaijan is responsible for the start of the clashes. Starting from 2015 the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, representing the USA, France, and Russia and being the internationally mandated format for mediation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, have insisted on the necessity of installing ceasefire violation mechanisms along the Line of Contact between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, as well as between the state borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Back then, the mediators clearly noted that the Armenian side had agreed to the proposal and urged the Azerbaijani side to do so as well. Azerbaijan never accepted that proposal.

Another point is the actions on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh as well as on the borders with Armenia. Particularly after 2004 when oil revenues of Azerbaijan have immensely enhanced the military budget of Azerbaijan, from time to time we have witnessed and heard how the leadership of Azerbaijan is boasting about its “military capacity” to “solve the Karabakh conflict by any means, including military”. The rhetoric has been backed up by actions on the ground and occasional violations of the ceasefire, the biggest of which before 2020 happened in 2016 April.

Third, after the military exercises of Turkey with Azerbaijan several Turkish units, consultants as well as military equipment, including air forces, stayed in Azerbaijan to assist in the eventual aggression against Artsakh /Nagorno-Karabakh/ and Armenia. This was backed up by the ongoing recruitment of Islamic terrorists in the Middle East from late summer about which several countries have on top levels already warned after this information became public after the start of the war. All this may have seemed extremely worrying back then. But now, it is all too clear that the commencement of aggression was long-planned by the Azerbaijani leadership and assisted by the Turks.

Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh did not have any tactical, strategic, or any other interest to start any military operation against Azerbaijan which had been preparing for war for almost two decades now, and which has been backed by Turkey and terrorists. So, when Azerbaijani diplomats are putting the blame on the Armenian sides for the start of the war it goes completely against the words of their and Turkey’s leaders statements and behaviour on the ground. The purpose of such action is to win international public support, but it is a very big lie not to be noticed by reasonable people.

2) Why is there a shelling of population centers within the current clashes?

Right from the very beginning of the outbreak of hostilities, Azerbaijan targeted the residential neighborhoods of Stepanakert and other big cities of Artsakh, its infrastructure, and civilians. It pursued a very simple goal: to destroy the facilities necessary for the existence of a civilian population, to create an atmosphere of terror, to force the peaceful population to flee․ If we try to describe all this in one phrase, we can say that Azerbaijan's goal is to create a humanitarian catastrophe. In addition, according to numerous international sources, confirmed by Amnesty International, Azerbaijan uses cluster bombs against the civilian population of Artsakh, which are prohibited by international conventions. Just today Human Rights Watch in its report once more concluded that “Azerbaijan has repeatedly used widely banned cluster munitions in residential areas in Nagorno-Karabakh”. At the same time, it should be noted that the Artsakh Defense Army targets only military facilities, from where Nagorno Karabakh Army positions are being shelled.

Another serious issue is, indeed, as mentioned, the refusal of Azerbaijan to collect its victims’ bodies. This poses a serious health problem with far-reaching catastrophic consequences. I do not know another country which is so indifferent to its own soldiers’ bodies.

To make things worse, Azerbaijan installs its rocket launchers and military equipment next to residential areas. And when the Artsakh Defense forces are responding to the indiscriminate fire launched from Azerbaijan and if any residential spot is hit, an immense propaganda war starts against Armenians.

Yet, whole civilian areas in Martakert, Stepanakert, Sushi, and other cities and villages in Nagorno-Karabakh have been targeted purposefully. Shushi Cathedral was attacked twice in less than an hour, bombed by air forces and then drone attacked. Attacks on religious sites is a war crime.

Azerbaijan wishes to cleanse Armenians from Artsakh, where they have inhabited for several millennia. For Armenians Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of our fatherland, for Azernajani leaders, it is just a territory.

3) What would be necessary for military clashes to end?

The international community can put an end to the military conflict by taking active steps to ensure that Turkey, as a party, immediately withdraws from the conflict and does not support Azerbaijan by sending new weapons and terrorist militants. This position needs to be very forcefully pushed forward with a very clear sanctions regime on the table as well.

I would like to underline that it is very important to ban the sending of new weapons to Azerbaijan from third countries during the conflict. Unfortunately, Turkey is not the only state sending deadly equipment to Azerbaijan. All of those planes transporting drones, other weapons, and terrorists to Azerbaijan, are bringing more death, these are death planes.

Indeed Azerbaijan needs to be warned that its violation of the 1994-95 ceasefire agreements, which have no time limitations, as well as twice its violations of humanitarian ceasefires about which it has given its agreement, will have consequences. The international society can not be indifferent to war initiators, who recklessly kill civilians, destroy civilian infrastructures, and kill prisoners of war. War crimes are committed by Azerbaijan and its enablers on a daily basis. We thought that “Never Again” a century after the Armenian Genocide in 1915 or 70 years after the Holocaust was not just a catchword, but a meaningful message with all consequences.

Worst crimes are committed against humanity and civilization, and we are still waiting for effective measures to put an end to it.

Continuous violations of the ceasefire by Azerbaijan should have consequences. The US National Security Adviser clearly stated that the Armenian side welcomed the ceasefire, but Azerbaijan is against it. Thus, Azerbaijan needs to be brought to bear the consequences of such behavior.

4) What is the long term solution to the ongoing conflict?

The long-term solution to this problem is the recognition of the self-determination of the people of Artsakh. This is one of the fundamental elements proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on several occasions. There is no alternative. This is nothing but a struggle for salvation. Remedial recognition is the only solution when any other alternative risks the total annihilation of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan keeps repeating about territorial integrity, ignoring the context of when and how it became independent. First of all, Azerbaijan became independent in 1991 and a member of the UN in 1992. At the time Azerbaijan did not control Nagorno-Karabakh. Secondly, Azerbaijan declared itself as the successor to the 1918-1920 republic, within which Nagorno-Karabakh was not included. Karabakh was given to Soviet Azerbaijan by Stalin. Thus, an illegal act of one of the worst tyrants in world history is the only “legal foundation” of Azerbaijan’s claims.

5) What should be the involvement of international society in solving the conflict?

Indeed giving correct, strict, and urgent assessments about Turkey’s impermissible involvement, the recruitment, and transportation of terrorists to the conflict zone, the transportation of deadly offensive weapons to Azerbaijan when by rhetoric and action Baku is decisively genocidal, as well as the use of deadly weapons, attacks on civilian infrastructures. Lacking such assessments and acting thereof risks pushing the conflict into a bloodier and much more unpredictable predicament. Eventually, the remedial recognition of Artsakh has no alternative. It is not self-determination that leads to conflict, but the unjust denial thereof. The realization of the right of self-determination remains an effective tool in conflict-prevention strategy.

Azerbaijan keeps preaching about the UNSC 1993 resolutions the aim of which was the immediate cessation of hostilities. After that, the UNSC has not made any resolution on this subject. The last two times the UNSC gathered was already in the context of this conflict now, and they did not make any reference to those resolutions which were totally contextual and did not propose any solution to the conflict. The UN rather delegated to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to find a solution to the conflict.

The territory is not more sacred than the people who live in it. You can not commit genocide for the sake of “territorial integrity”. That is why the principle of self-determination is the purpose of the UN Charter.

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